Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

I recently spoke to the IT Director and Head of End User Computing at a leading healthcare company who implemented Salesforce globally across their entire employee user base 9 months ago (before later becoming a Nexthink customer). She told me their Salesforce licensing model was similar to others you’ll see in market: a set of base licenses and then selected add-ons based on employee roles – with some at no charge and others priced ala carte. Her problem? License metering.

Even with work almost entirely digital, there is still a considerable gap between the optimized and seamless services IT teams aim to deliver, and the actual quality of the digital experiences of employees.

Why is it that when IT has to manage a virtual desktop environment, their job becomes infinitely harder? If you were to poll every major enterprise IT department, there’s always one team (or person) that’s ultimately held accountable for the organization’s Digital Employee Experience.

Employees in today’s corporations are dependent on properly functioning technology in order to get their work done and realize their business objectives. User experience can affect outcomes positively or negatively. The IT team at HCL Technologies turned to Nexthink to grant them insight into their client’s user experience and facilitate proactive responses to issues affecting users.

For years, IT experts and institutions have promoted the likes of Agile, ITSM, DevOps and other popular methods as a way for technology professionals to boost their own careers and to help departments break down complex modern work problems. And IT leaders have used these methods to communicate value (albeit reactively) to business executives to help explain the work they do between IT and non-IT people.

What’s the service desk ticket that finally broke the camel’s back? Andrew Cohen (Sr. Manager, Digital Workplace Services at Cox) never had to find out – because he transitioned to a proactive service desk. In other words: a service desk that isn’t weighed down by growing ticket counts, reoccurring issues, and non-responsive employees. In a recent BrightTALK-hosted webinar, Andrew shared some of his firsthand experiences with building a proactive IT team.

If someone predicted how IT roles will change in the coming years, they’d likely envision tech roles maturing around emerging and high-value new technologies, such as AI, data science, and the cloud, as well as an ongoing focus on cybersecurity across industries and business divisions. These topics frequently come up in discussions with tech leaders about the near future of IT roles. But many would be surprised by two major trends.

This one goes out to my fellow IT support leaders who might find themselves drowning in ticket data and stuck in reactive mode. I work as the Enhanced Support Services Lead at a global consulting firm where I manage my organization’s L2 support team and in-house Customer Experience Analytics team (CEA)—a group of individuals that I wish had by my side years ago—more on that later.

Even though lockdown in the UK is easing and shops are reopening, there remains a question mark around the timing for the return to the office. As the pandemic continues to impact society, many professionals find themselves continuing to conduct business from their home offices, dining rooms, or bedrooms.

Competition for good employees is fierce. Nearly all business leaders (95% according to a 2021 Robert Half study) say it’s challenging to find skilled professionals. So companies must invest in workplace experiences that can attract and retain talent. Competition for sales and market share is also tough, and that means companies must rely on top-tier talent to thrive in the digital era.